Skin to Skin contact: SC stays Bombay HC order acquitting man under POCSO

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday stayed the Bombay High Court order which acquitted a man under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act saying ‘groping a minor's breast’ without "skin to skin contact" cannot be termed as sexual assault.

A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian stayed the high court order after Attorney General K K Venugopal mentioned the matter. The top court also issued notice to Maharashtra government and permitted the AG to file an appeal against the January 19 verdict of Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.

A Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde also issues notice to the accused in the case, seeking his response in two weeks. https://t.co/RACAoDiQDZ — ANI (@ANI) January 27, 2021

On January 19, the high court had said that groping a minor's breast without "skin to skin contact" cannot be termed as sexual assault as defined under the POCSO Act.

It held however that since the man groped her without removing her clothes, the offence cannot be termed as sexual assault and, instead, constitutes the offence of outraging a woman's modesty under IPC section 354.

The high court had modified the order of a sessions court, which had sentenced a 39-year-old man to three years of imprisonment for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.